


Three AM

by bafflethemwithbullshit



Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: Alternate Universe, Elizabeth and Henry aren't married, F/M, FBI Agent, Jason isn't born yet, Stevie and Alison are only little, meets professor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:27:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bafflethemwithbullshit/pseuds/bafflethemwithbullshit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry McCord is a Columbia Professor. Elizabeth Adams is an FBI agent. What if the two meet by chance? Join these two in an alternate universe to watch an epic love story unfold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three AM

**Author's Note:**

> My first Madam Secretary fic so be nice.

It was cold out. His nose was starting to light up like Rudolph's and his knuckles were as white as the snow on the pavement. Henry weaved through the very few people on the streets of New York City, trying to find somewhere warm where he could feel his hands.  
  
He needed to call his mother, she was worried that he wasn't getting enough sleep. He wasn't, hence the reason he was walking around at 3 in the morning, but she didn't need to know that. She worried too much as it was. He loved his job, he really did, but he hated staying up until all hours of the morning grading papers. Sometimes he felt as run down as some of his students.  
  
Finally he found a corner cafe. A small coffee shop with only a few people in it. As soon as he stepped inside, he was hit by warmth and coziness all at once. He let his mouth twitch as he approached the counter and a woman smiled up at him from the other side.  
  
"Hi, what can I get for you?" she asked him warmly. The woman was short with dark brown hair, graying slightly at the sides. She looked to be in her late fifties-early sixties, but was still enjoying life nonetheless. Her name tag read 'Rosa'.  
  
He returned her smile "Uh, just a black coffee, thanks," he replied politely.  
  
"No problem, sweets," the older woman replied "Coming right up,"  
  
He sat down on one of the swivel-stools, and perched himself up over the counter, resting on his elbows. He looked around at the other people in the diner. In a booth by the window sat a couple, maybe in their mid twenties, clearly in love as they played with each other hands on the table and stealing kisses every now and again.  
  
"Here you go," his coffee was placed in front of him with another friendly smile, which he accepted with a 'thank you' "Can I get you anything else, Sugar?"  
  
"No, thank you, this is great," he replied with a nod.  
  
"Alrighty, well, if you change your mind..." He have her another nod of gratitude as she walked away. He took a sip of his coffee, breathing in it's aroma before he did so, closing his eyes to savor it.  
  
As he opened his eyes, he placed the mug back onto the counter and turned to pull a stack of papers out of his leather satchel. As he looked up again, he caught a glimpse of a ball in the corner booth. A blonde haired, blue eyed masterpiece in her very early thirties, curled up in a ball with black framed glasses as a whole heap of paperwork covered the table, a laptop in front of her.  
  
She had pen in her mouth, her eyebrows furrowed as she looked back and forth between the files and the laptop. She quickly tucked a loose curl behind her ear as it fell in front of her face before going back to typing on her laptop.  
  
He sat there watching her for what seemed like forever, until she took her glasses off, rubbed her eyes and cracked her neck. She looked up from her work and looked around, catching Henry's eye. Suddenly he sat up straight and whipped his head around to his own work, he needed to get started anyway.  
  
Risking a second look, he glanced back at the woman, who seemed to be looking back at him with a slight grin on her face before she looked back at her work. His mouth twitched and he faced his own work, trying to focus on the papers in front of him.  
  
The quiet of the diner was interrupted by the ringing of a cellphone, coming from the woman's direction. Henry looked over again as she reached across the table and answered the phone "Adams," she answered. There was a long pause before she nodded and responded again "Yes, sir, of course." She started gathering her things as she held the phone between her ear and her shoulder "I'll be right there,"  
  
The woman hung up the phone and finished packing away her things before racing out the door of the diner. Henry followed her with his eyes, before glancing back at the table and noticing a file sitting on the seat of the booth.  
  
Without giving it much thought, he quickly scooped up the file and raced after her out the door "Excuse me, ma'm?" he called after her, making her turn around to look at him, stopping her in her tracks.  
  
"I'm sorry, ma'm, but you left your..." Henry finally glanced down at the file in his hand, noticing the big national symbol on the front "FBI?" he looked back up at her.  
  
She grinned slightly as she took the file from him "Does that surprise you?"  
  
"Yeah-I mean no-of course a strong woman-I'm just gonna stop talking now," he rambled, managing to cut himself off as he rubbed the back of his neck. The woman chuckled at him as she bit her lip and Henry blushed a deep shade of red. She was even more beautiful up close, her bright blue eyes lighting up under the New York lights and her tanned skin glowed.  
  
"Well, thank you for the file," she gestured to the manila folder in her hand "Who knows what could've happened if that got into the wrong hands,"  
  
"Any time," he replied and she started to turn away, walking a few yards down the street "I'm Henry!" he called out after her, making her turn around and face him as she walked backwards away from him.  
  
"Elizabeth!" she replied before she smiled and turned around again, walking away for good this time, leaving his outside the diner grinning like an idiot before he walked back inside to finish his papers.  
  
_Elizabeth._ He sounded it out in his head, and suddenly it was the most beautiful name he'd ever heard.

* * *

"What have we got?" asked Elizabeth as she walked into the conference room.  
  
"Where you been, Adams?" asked Russell Jackson, her boss' lackey.  
  
"Russell Jackson, Ma'am," her assistant, Blake, informed her from his position at his desk.  
  
"Thank you, Blake," she responded slightly sarcastic "Y'know Russell, just once, it'd be great if you called ahead,"  
  
"I did, Bess," he responded "But you weren't here, so I am,"  
  
"And why's that?" asked Bess before turning to her team "Why are we all here at 4am?"  
  
"Four girls in Long Island went missing last night," her press liaison, Daisy, stepped up and passed her the tablet "They were taken from Citi Field after the Mets game last night,"  
  
Bess reached into her jacket posket and pulled out her glasses, taking the tablet from Daisy "Anyone made contact?"  
  
"Yes, Ma'am," said Daisy, nodding "Each of the girls made a call to their parents at midnight, that's when we got the call,"  
  
"And each call follows the same script?"  
  
"Down to a 'T'," another spoke up "Ma'am, he's back, and he's escalating,"  
  
"I know, Jay," Bess sighed as she handed the tablet back to Daisy "Nadine, are the parents here?"  
  
Nadine nodded "Yes, they are," she replied.  
  
"What do they know?"  
  
"Nothing, Ma'am,"  
  
"Let's keep it that way, shall we?" Russell Jackson said, looking at his Blackberry as he started to make his way to the door "The Director wants this solved quickly,"  
  
"Surprise me," Matt snarled after Jackson had left the room, making the corner of Bess' mouth twitch.  
  
"Okay," Elizabeth started "Matt, start a profile, go over the recordings the girls left, see if you can find anything that we've missed before. Nadine and Daisy, talk to the parents, split them up, you know the drill..."  
  
"What about me, Ma'am?" Blake asked, rising from his desk.  
  
"Get someone from Quantico in my office," said Bess "We're missing something, and we need to know what," Blake nodded as he sat back down and picked up the phone "Jay, you and I are gonna take a ride,"  
  
"Where to, Ma'am?" he furrowed his eyebrows.  
  
"Where they were taken from," Elizabeth replied.

* * *

"You leavin', Sweets?" asked Rosa as Henry finished packing up his things. Three coffees and twenty, 10,000 word essays later, and he was ready to sleep for two days straight.  
  
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna call it a night," Henry replied, pulling the satchel over his head and pulling his wallet out from his back pocket.  
  
"Y'know," Rosa started as he placed the money on the counter "She comes in almost every night,"  
  
"Who?" he acted ignorant, of course he knew who she was talking about.  
  
"Bess," Rosa replied "She says she likes the quiet, it helps her concentrate,"  
  
Henry smiled and furrowed his eyebrows slightly "Bess?"  
  
"The only person who calls her Elizabeth is her brother," Rosa said.  
  
"How long have you known her?" Henry asked.  
  
"Since she was just a kid," said Rosa, smiling fondly "She's like my own, she's a good girl, that one,"  
  
Henry smiled and nodded "Thank you," he replied, and readjusted the strap on his shoulder "Have a good night," he said and started to walk out the door, hearing a 'you too' in return as he did.

* * *

"My dad used to take me to baseball games when I was a kid," Elizabeth started as she started to walk up onto the pitchers mound.  
  
"I thought he taught you to golf?" Jay asked, looking up at her as she looked around at the lights of the stadium.  
  
"He did," Elizabeth grinned slightly "He wanted two sons, got me instead,"  
  
"No disrespect Ma'am, but I've met your brother, I think you turned out to be a better looking woman," Jay responded.  
  
Elizabeth laughed out loud at that "Jay, word of advice," she said as she stepped down off the mound "When you compliment a woman on her looks, don't call her Ma'am," she clapped his shoulder as she walked past him, scooping up a ball off the ground.  
  
"Noted," Jay replied, falling in-step with her "So all the CCTV footage shows is the girls leaving, and so far I can't find any blind spots where someone could have been following them,"  
  
"We'll take it back to the lab, have them analyse it, hopefully they can get something off facial recognition," Elizabeth replied "Until then, we can go over the profile, and go back through the previous victims records, hopefully we can find something we missed before,"  
  
"I don't like it," Jay shook his head.  
  
"Well, too bad, it's part of the job-"  
  
"No, I mean..." Jay sighed and shook his head in frustration, making Elizabeth look over at him curiously.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Four girls at once?" asked Jay "It doesn't make any sense, something's changed,"  
  
"This guy went off the radar for, what, 18 months?" Elizabeth asked "Now he's back, which means something triggered him to. Now instead of one question, we have two, what or who triggered him to start abducting again, and do they have anything to do with it now?"  
  
"You think he has a partner?" Jay asked.  
  
Elizabeth shrugged a shoulder slightly "Unless you've got a better explanation as to how one man can abduct and restrain four eighteen year old girls at once..."

* * *

Everyone had worked through the night, missing person's cases are time sensitive as it is, but they knew this guy. They also knew that he works fast, which meant they had to as well. Blake managed to get two profilers out to New York in a matter of hours, and Matt had come up with his own profile in the meantime. Daisy and Nadine had talked to the families of the missing girls and all of them were running off coffee and no sleep.  
  
Tech guys had come in when Elizabeth called because when she said jump, they asked how high, and this case was more pressing than any case had ever been. They dealt with cases like these all the time, only they usually got them the first time around. This guy was smart, or lucky, or both.  
  
Elizabeth had never really planned on being in the FBI. She was recruited after her days as a CIA analyst, and became one of the FBI's most respected and feared agents to this day. The director or the FBI had been a friend and an ally throughout her years as an analyst, and when she retired for her daughter, he offered her the position in the Bureau.  
  
Apart from Blake, her staff was never really hers to begin with. She inherited them, and in time, came to trust them and on some level...love them. And she had faith that they would find these girls. But they had to do it fast.

* * *

Waking up in the morning was tough for him. Not hitting his pillow until 4:30, he'd only had a few hours sleep. His daughter was at his mother's house last night, luckily, because he definitely wouldn't have the energy to get her ready for school.  
  
Dragging himself out of bed, he managed to make himself a cup of coffee before brushing his teeth and making his way out the door, extra papers and a coffee in his hand, and his satchel over his shoulder. He hated driving to the university, it was really only down a few blocks and driving in New York city really doesn't do anyone justice.  
  
As he made his way down the street, he was able to shift his bag on his shoulder properly and hold his papers and coffee in a way that left an arm free to call his mother "Hey Mom," he greeted.  
  
_"Henry, you sound tired,"_  
  
"Mom, I'm fine," said Henry, grinning slightly. She could always tell if his voice was different, if something was off "I just went to bed a little late last night, that's all,"  
  
_"Mhm, if you say so,"_  
  
"How's Alison?" he asked "Was she okay last night?"  
  
_"She was fine, I love having her here,"_  
  
"I know, Mom, but I'm sorry for just leaving you with her all the time, you deserve better than that,"  
  
_"Better than spending time with my own granddaughter?"_  
  
Henry smiled slightly "Thanks, Mom, I'll talk to you later,"  
  
_"Bye, Henry,"_  
  
As Henry hung up the phone, he looked down to put it back in his pocket, only to slam straight into someone else.  
  
Papers flew everywhere and his coffee fell on the ground with a splash. He sighed slightly as he bent down to pick them up "Oh, my God, I am so sorry," a voice started to ramble, which made him look up "I wasn't watching where I was going and-"  
  
"Elizabeth?" he asked, smiling slightly at the blonde woman crouching down in front of him. Wide blue eyes looked up at him, startled.  
  
"Henry?"  
  
The two looked at each other for a while until a loud noise from inside the coffee shop they were outside of brought them from their daze, making them hurriedly pick everything up before standing up in front of each other.  
  
"Fancy running into you here," said Henry, grinning slightly.  
  
"Yeah, literally," Elizabeth said sarcastically, making Henry chuckle "Did I destroy anything? Those papers looked pretty important,"  
  
"They're fine," Henry assured her with a smile "I've got copies anyway,"  
  
Elizabeth smiled back at him as a throat cleared next to them, making her head snap to them "Oh, uh, right. Jay this is Henry, Henry...Jay,"  
  
"Pleasure," Henry stuck out his free hand to shake Jay's, who nodded with a smile in return.  
  
Henry turned back to Elizabeth and frowned "Did you...work all night?" Elizabeth looked confused for a moment before Henry spoke up again "You were called away pretty fast last night and you're wearing the same clothes,"  
  
Without even looking at him, Elizabeth could see Jay's eyebrows rising into his hairline. She was going to have to talk her way out of this one.  
  
"Yeah, well, duty calls," she replied and then looked down at the spilled coffee on the floor "Oh, God, let me at least buy you another coffee,"  
  
"Well, that depends..." Henry started, grinning slightly, suddenly having a lot ore confidence than he did the night before.  
  
"On what? Whether you can keep it in your hand?" she raised an eyebrow at him, making him laugh and shake his head.  
  
"On whether you let me buy you dinner," he said, making Jay choke on his own coffee next to them.  
  
Elizabeth opened her mouth a few times to say something, only for nothing to come out. Jay ended his coughing fit and stood up properly "I'm just gonna-I think I'm getting a call-I'll be over there," he spluttered out as he walked away, leaving the two alone.  
  
"Did I just embarrass you?" asked Henry, noticing her slightly panicked expression "Because that was totally not my intention-"  
  
"No, no, no, no!" Elizabeth cut him off "You just caught me off guard,"  
  
"So...Friday?" he asked, hope filling his eyes.  
  
Elizabeth smiled and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small business card and handing it over to him "Give me a call," she replied, before walking past him and catching up with Jay who was pretending to be on the phone "Not a word of this to anyone," she warned him.  
  
"You mean how you managed to spill a guys coffee over his work and managed to get a date with him anyway?" he asked, innocently, hiding a grin.  
  
Elizabeth punched his arm lightly. Jay was like her little brother, the annoyingly stubborn guy who had an opinion on everything, but was protective nonetheless.  
  
"Jay..." she warned.  
  
"I got it. My lips are sealed."

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't notice, Jason doesn't exist yet. Also I've done them young enough to still have Alison and Stevie, just at a younger age. It'll make more sense as I go along.


End file.
